clark painting in the year two

7/25/2019 Clark Painting in the Year Two

1/53

Painting in the Year TwoAuthor(s): T. J. ClarkSource: Representations, No. 47, Special Issue: National Cultures before Nationalism (Summer,1994), pp. 13-63Published by: University of California PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2928785.

Accessed: 15/06/2013 17:53

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at.http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of

content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms

of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

University of California Pressis collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to

Representations.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 132.206.27.25 on Sat, 15 Jun 2013 17:53:00 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ucalhttp://www.jstor.org/stable/2928785?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/2928785?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ucal


2/53

T.J.

CLARK

Painting n theYear Two

L'histoire

'a trop ouvent

acontges ctions ue des

betesfiroces,

armi esquelles n

distingue

e oin

n

oin

des

heros;

i nous st ermis 'espgrer

ue nous

commenpons

l'histoire

eshommes.

-Mirabeaul

1. BOOKS

ABOUT

MODERNISM-what

follows

will eventuallybe the

first hapter

of one-tend

to go

in

for inaugural dates. It

all began in the 1820s,

they

say, or with

Courbet setting up

his booth outside the

Expositionuniverselle,

r

the year Madame Bovaryand Les Fleurs du mal were put on trial, or in Room M of

the Salon

des

refuses.

An

important component

in

historical sequences

of artistic

events,"

according to George Kubler,

is an abrupt change

of content nd expression

at intervalswhen

an entire

anguage of

form uddenlyfalls

nto disuse,being replaced

by

new anguage of different

omponents

and an unfamiliargrammar.

An

example

is

the sudden transformation

f occidental art

and architecture

bout

1910.

The

fabric f

society

manifested

o

rupture, nd

the texture

of useful nventions

ontinued tep by tep

n

closely

inkedorder,but the system

f artistic

invention

was abruptly

ransformed,

s

if

arge numbers f

men

[sic]

had suddenlybecome

aware that he

nherited

epertory

f

forms

no

longer

corresponded to the actual

meaning

ofexistence.... In art the transformation as as if nstantaneous,with hetotalconfigu-

rationof

whatwe now recognize

s modern artcoming

ll at once intobeing

without

many

firm

inks

o the preceding system

f

expression.2

My

candidate

for the

beginning

of modernism

s 25 vendemiaire

n

Deux (16

October

1793,.

s it came

to be

known).

That was the

day

a

hastily ompleted

paintingby Jacques-Louis

David,

of

Marat,

the

martyred

hero

of the Revolu-

tion-Marat

a son

dernier

oupir,

David called

it

early

on-was released into

the

public

realm

plate 1).3

2.

A fewminutes fter

midday

on 25

vendemiaire,

Marie Antoinettewas

guil-

lotined. Michelet

tells us

that her

death,

so

long

demanded

by

Hebert

and the

sections,

n

the

event went

off

quietly.4 eople's

minds were

elsewhere-on

the

scandal

of

Precy's scape

from

Lyon,

and

the

news,mostly ad,

fromthe

Army

of the

North. They

knew

a

great

battle

was

brewing.

The cart

carrying

he

queen

to

the scaffold

may

well

have

passed

directly

nder the

windows f David's

apart-

ment

in the Palais

du

Louvre;

in

any

case

we

have

a

pen-and-ink

drawing

in

David's

hand of the

queen

in her final

regalia,

seemingly

one

on the

spot (fig.

1).

"Sinistre

pochade,"

its first wner called

it.5The

queen

died bravely.

Her

last

REPRESENTATIONS

47

*

Summer 994

?

T.J.

Clark

13

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


3/53

Ito-


4/53

PLATE

1.

Jacques-LouisDavid, La

Mort eMarat,

1793.

Oil on canvas.

Musees

royauxdes beaux-arts,

Brussels.Photo:

Giraudon/Art

esource.



5/53

surmontaient

es tableaux, peints

par

David,

des deux martyrs

e la

libert6;

un

service

funebre

yfut elebr6

vec

hymnes

t discours.

Comme

dans

les

ceremonies

du culte

catho-

lique, tous

es arts

ontribuaient

ar

leur prestige

l'exaltation

es

fiddles;

es sans-culottes

communiaient

ans le souvenir

de

leurs

martyrs.

[On

the afternoon

of 16 October,

the Museum

section

marches

n

procession

along

the

quai de l'Ecole, the rues de la Monnaie, Saint-Honore,and Saint-Nicaise,pauses in the

place

de la

Reunion

to burn

the act

of indictment

gainst

Marat {that

s, a copy

of the

formal

ndictment

rawn

up

by

the

Girondins

s part

of their

war

on Marat

the

previous

April},

continues

long the

quai du

Louvre

as far

s the

rue des Poulies,

and

goes into

the

courtyard

of the

Louvre through

the

grand

colonnade.

At their head

are ten

ranks of

drums

and riflemen

marching

ine abreast,

then a detachment

f

the armed

forces;after

them

thepopular

societieswith

heir tandards,

he sections preceded

by their

banners,"

the corporate

bodies;

a

detachment

f

troops

comes

next,

flag

nd drums

n the ead;

then

the

Museum

section

passes

by

n

masse;

then

"corps

of musicians"

head

of a deputation

from the

Convention,

followed

by young

conscripts

a mass

conscription

f Frenchmen.

had

been ordered

nine

monthsbefore}

carrying

ranches

of oak,

and in their

midst

the

bustsof Maratand Lepeletier;behindthem thecitoyennesfthe section dressed in white,

holding

theirchildren

by the

hand and

carrying

lowers

o deck

Marat's

tomb;

bringing

up

the rear

of the march,

detachment

f

the section's

rmed forces.

n the courtyard

f

the Louvre,

sarcophagi

had been

set up,

and on top of

them

pictures,painted

by

David,

of

the two

martyrs

f

iberty

the

other

picture,

f

the

regicide

Michel

Le Peletier

de

Saint-

Fargeau,

killed by

a

Royalist

n

themorning

of the

king's

xecution,

no longer

exists};

a

funeral

service

was solemnized

with hymns

nd speeches.

As in

the ceremonies

of

the

Catholic religion,

ll

the arts

dministered

y

their

magic

to the exaltation

of the faithful;

the

sans-culottes

ommuned

together

n the

memory

f theirmartyrs.]6

3. It is not often that we know so much about the circumstances in which a

painting

was

first hown

to

the

public.

But

then,

it is not

often

that the

circum-

stances

are

so

carefully

stage-managed.

No

one

can be sure

that

it was

David

himself

who decided

who went

where that

day carrying

what.

The Ordre

de

la

marche

has

no

specific

author.

But it would

not be

surprising

if

David

were

respon-

sible.

He was

the

Republic's

great

expert

on matters

of mass choreography.

He

was one

of

the Museum

section's

most

important

Jacobins.

And two

days previ-

ously

he had

gone

before

the Convention

to announce

that

the

picture

of Marat

was completed,

and

to ask

his colleagues,

"avant

de

vous l'offrir,

e me

permettre

de le preter

a

mes

concitoyens

de la section

du

Museum,

ainsi

que

celui

de

Lepelletier,

afin

qu'ils

puissent

etre

l'un et l'autre

pr6sents

en

quelque

sorte

aux

honneurs civiques qu'ils

recoivent

de leurs

concitoyens."7

Naturally

the Conven-

tionnels

were

not

to be excluded

from this

special

event.

They

could

come

see

their

pictures

if

they

wanted

to.

Even march

in the

procession.

"Je

vous

y

invite

les

premiers

a

les

venir

voir chez

moi au Louvre,

a

commencer

de Samedi

prochain."

The Convention

seems

to have agreed

to David's

proposal

without

much dis-

cussion.

Among

other

things,

t would

probably

have

struck

them as

no bad

thing

for

the afternoon

of Marie

Antoinette's

execution-she

was

appearing

before

the

Painting

n the Year

Two

15



6/53

Revolutionary

ribunal on the day David made his request-to

have one or two

rivalattractions

n offer.

I

did

say, among

other things." y which

mean otherpossible purposes-

othermeanings

nd messageswhichmayhave

been in the

organizers'

minds,

nd

maybeevenin theparticipants',s they et out theirpictures nto thepublicrealm

or made their way

toward the sarcophagi.

I believe that David's procession

belongs

to its moment-to

the

days

and weekssurrounding25 vendemiaire-in

ways

not

necessarily

written n the surface of things.

And

that

the

picture

of

Marat only trulymakes

sense

if

tsbelongingto the same

moment s takenseri-

ously,

ven at

the risk

of

setting

he

empiricist's

eeth

terminally

n

edge.

For of

course the Marat

was not done withtheprocession n view.

The procession

was

throwntogether

n October. It was

part

of that month's

specificpolitics.

The

Marathad

been under

way

since

July.

t had been orderedbythe Convention, o

be seen

in

situ

by

Conventionnels.

And so

it

would be

in

due course-for a while

behind

the

tribune

n

the Salle des

s6ances,

and

later,

when

Marat's

fortunes

waned,

somewhere

n an outer

office.

But it is never

the case that we interest urselves

n

the circumstances

f a

picture's

first howing

because we believe

the picturewas done forthat showing.

That

showing

could

only

have been

imagined,

or

perhaps

fantasized,

by

the

painter

s

he or she

was at work

n

the first

lace.

And

always naccurately. avid,

I

hazard

the

guess,

never had the idea while he

did

the

painting

that

eventually

his

Marat and

Le

Peletier

would be

"presents

en

quelque sorte aux

honneurs

civiques qu'ils

recoivent

de leurs

concitoyens."

ut

the fact

that

theywere,

and

that n theend he went to such lengths odictatethe terms f their nclusion n

the

event,

tells

us

something

bout

the

nature

of

David's

presuppositions-his

active

magining

f what he was

doing painting

Marat at all.

Something

decisive:

that is

my

hunch.

For

my

feeling

s that what marks

this

moment

of

picture-

making

off

rom thers

what

makes

t

naugural)

s

precisely

he

fact hat

ontin-

gency

rules.

Contingency

nters the

process

of

picturing.

t

invades

it.

There

is

no other

entity

ut of which

paintings

an

now be made-no

givens,

no

matters

and

subject

matters,

o

forms,

no usable

pasts.

Or none that

nybody

grees

on

any onger.

And

in

painting-in

art n

general-disagreement

means desuetude.

Modernism s theartof thesenewcircumstances.t can revel n the contin-

gency

or

mourn the desuetude. Sometimes

t

does both.

But

onlythat rt can

be

called

modernistwhich

takes the one

or

the other fact

as

determinant.

And

I

suppose

I

should

say, ace post's

nd

neo's,

as

atrocious.)

4. So what

contingency, recisely?

And entering hepicture

how?

Let me

go

back to the

procession

on

25

vendemiaire.

The first hing

to

say

about

it s that t

was,

at least

at

one

level,profoundly

rdinary.

vents much like

it had

happened

elsewhere

n

Paris

n the

precedingdays,

and

many

more were

16

REPRESENTATIONS



7/53

to come

all through

frimaire

nd nivose.The sections

de la Halle-au-Bled

et de

Guillaume

Tell, RWunies,

orexample,had gathered

on 6 October

Pour 'Inaugu-

ration esBustes

eBrutus,

Michel epelletier

tPaul Marat,

Martyrse la Liberte',

t a

Declaration

es

Droits

e

'Homme,

rave'e

urune

pierre

e aBastille.8 hey

published

extractsfrom the speeches made that day. The sectionde Piques was equally

proud

of the address

Prononce'

la Fe^te e'cerne'e..

aux manesde

Marat etde Le

Pelletier,ar Sade,

Citoyen

e

cette

ection,

t membree

la

Socite'

populaire.

They

brought

t out in pamphlet

form n 29 September.

CitizenSade,

unsurprisingly,

had

things

o

say

about CharlotteCorday.

Sexe

timide tdoux,comment

e

peut-il

ue

vos mains elicatesyent aisi

e poignard

que

la seduction

iguisoit?

..

Ah votre

mpressement

venir

etter

des fleurs ur e

tombeau e ce

veritablemidu peuple,

nousfait ublier

ue le crime cutrouver

n

bras

parmi

ous.

Le barbare ssassin

e

Marat,

emblable cesetres

mixtes

uxquels

nnepeut

assigner

ucunsexe,

vomi

par

les enfers our

e desespoir e tous deux,

n'appartient

directementaucun. 1faut u'unevoilefunebrenveloppe amaissamemoire; u'on

cesse urtout

e nous

presenter,

omme

n ose e

faire,

on

effigie

ous 'embleme

nchan-

teur

de la

beaute.

Artistes

ropcredules,

risez, enversez, efigurez

es traits e ce

monstre,

u ne 'offrez

nosyeuxndignes u'au

milieu es furies

u Tartare.

[Soft

nd

timid

ex,

how an

it be that elicate ands

ike

yours

ave seized

the

dagger

whetted

y

edition?

.. Ah

your

agerness

o come throw lowersn

thetomb f this

true

friend f the people

makesus forget

hatCrimefound perpetrator

mongyou.

Marat's arbarous

iller,

ikeone of thosehybrid

reatureso whom

hetermsmale

and

female re

not

applicable,

omited rom he

aws

of Hell to the

despair

of both

exes,

belongs irectly

oneither.

er

memory

ust e

foreverhrouded n darkness;

nd above

all et

no one offer

s her

ffigy,

s somedare to

do,

n

the

nchantinguise

f

beauty.

too redulous rtists,reak opieces, ramplenderfoot,isfigurehismonster'seatures,

or

only

ffer er

o our revolted

yes

pursued y

Furies

rom heunderworld.]9

Presumably

hespeeches

at the ceremony

week

before,

on

23 September,

Dans

la Section

es

Gardes-Francoises,

our

'Inauguration

es

Bustes

de

Lepelletier

t

Marat,

had had

less

of

a

personal

subtext.

On

22 September

the section

du

Panth6on

gathered

to hear one Gavard-he

seems

to

have

no other claim

to

fame-deliver

a

funeral oration

to

Marat

alone.

And so on. These

are

only

the

occasions that

left written

ecord behind

them.'0

The showputon bythe Museum sectionwas ordinary, hen, n the sense of

being

one of a continuing

eries. I

am not

denying

that

ndividual tems

n the

series

are about as far

out of

the

ordinary

s one could dream

up. They

look like

figments

f de Maistre's

r Baudelaire's

imagination.

But this

s the Year

2.)

And

ordinary

n its

anguage,

in its

organization.

f

the

procession

of

25 vendemiaire

really

followed

he nstructions

et out in the Ordre e a marche-and

anymilitant

worth

his or her salt

knew

things

were ikely

o be a bit

ragged

on the afternoon-

then even an

unsympatheticpectator

would

have been

impressed,

t

least

by

a

certain

magery

f

Power.The

People

marched

through

he streets

o the Louvre.

At the heartof the

procession,

nd

by

the ook of

things

ts inglebiggest

lement,

Painting

n theYearTwo

17



8/53

was the rank

and fileof the Museum

section,passing by en masse. But the mass

was padded and sandwichedby orpsonstitues

f

all sorts:

delegations

from

Piques

and Pantheon and Guillaume

Tell,

clubs and

popular

societies ined

up

beneath

their nsignia, epresentatives

f

the courts nd offices f the

RevolutionaryGov-

ernment, hose Conventionnelswho had acceptedDavid's invitation f twodays

before,

women

in white

eading

theirchildren

by

the

hand, conscripts arrying

the busts of

the

martyrs

with he

respect nspired by

Virtue

n

those who have

vowed to

vanquish

for he

fatherland

r

die,"" marching ands,

drums

and

more

drums, and everywhere-at

the head of the

column,

n

the middle, making up

the rear-detachementse laforce rmee.

Nothing

s

accidental here. Everything s

in

its proper political nd Natural place. When the column

stopped

in the

place

de la Reunion

to set fire o the Girondins' ld act of

accusationagainst Marat,the

crowdswere

meant to remember he Girondin

deputies

then

awaiting

rial

n

the

Conciergerie,

nd harden theirhearts.The trial

began

a week later.

Brissot,

Ver-

gniaud,

and the restwere executed the week

following,

n

10

brumaire.

It

is a pity, iven

the amount

of

detail that

urvives, hatmore was not said by

contemporaries

bout how

the

Marat and

Le

Peletier

were

set

up

at the

end of

the route.

On

two

sarcophagi,

thatmuch is certain.

Under

some kind

of

tempo-

rary overing.One witness

rom he

early

nineteenth

entury

ecalls t

as a "cha-

pelle

ardente."'2 Another talks

of the

paintingsbeing put

"dans une

espece de

crypte unebre,

ui ls furent dmires

pendant

six

semaines."'3

Perhaps (here

his-

torians start

xtrapolating

romother

such floats nd

festival

cenery,

f which

there were

many

at the

time) they

were

put

inside

a half shell of branches and

tricolor rapery.That would agreewithDavid's aesthetic.

5.

I

am still

eft

wondering

what the occasion was

meant

to do.

Whose occa-

sion was it?

Why

did

David and othersthink

t

worth

nvesting

heir

nergies n,

when so

much else

demanded

their

ttention?What did

theytake

it

to signify?

Soboul,who

had his

reasons

for

wanting

o

believe

that

new

actor, he

menu

peuple

of

Paris,

had

stepped

onto

the

world-historical

tage

in

Year

2,

treatsthe

procession

we have been

looking

at as

one

of the

year's great momentsof class

self-discovery.Les sans-culottes ommuniaent dans le souvenir de leurs mar-

tyrs."

he

body

and blood

theypartook

of

in

the cour du

Louvre,

so he

believes,

was

essentially

heir own.

Come

unto

me all that

travail and are heavy laden.

David's

asking permission

to show off

the Marat and Le Peletier to his fellow

sectionnaires

s

interpreted

n a

similarly

xalted vein.

"L'art n'6tait

plus reserve a

une

minorite rivilegiee."'

I

suppose

I

am

more nclined han most

o

take

Soboul'shypothesis eriously.

Something

s

being played out,

in

and around the

strange

cult of

Marat

in

the

summer and

fall of

1793,

which no

one historical ctor

was

able to

control

com-

pletely-not

the

Jacobins,

not the

Hebertists,

ot

the followers f

poor Jacques

1

8

REPRESENTATIONS



9/53

Roux and

Claire Lacombe, not the

militantsn the Cordeliers

or thesectionnaires

with heirbanners,

not David,

not

Robespierre,

not CitizenSade. I shall speak

to

this ack

of control

n due course.

But

for the time being,let me ust

point out

thatSoboul

himself,

n his

bran

tubofa book,givesus the

clue which think asts

doubton his best-case nterpretation.

The day after

the procession, he reports,

the Soci6t6

sectionnaire du

Museum-that

is,

the hard core of popular activists

ho ran the section

s a polit-

ical entity-solicited

for ffiliation

o theJacobinClub.

Their spokesman

seemed

to know what metaphors

would

do

the trick:

"Les r6publicains

composant la

societe populaire

de la

sectiondu Mus6um viennent eclamerde leur

mere l'ali-

ment necessaire

au

developpement

de

leur

patriotisme;

une

mere tendre

pourrait-elle

epousser

un

enfantvertueux?Vous etes la societ6-mere

e

toutes

celles

de la

Republique; augmentez

votre famille n nous adoptant."'5

The sec-

tion'swish was granted;thoughnot,theJacobinnewspaperassured itsreaders

the

nextday,

until

fter

hemembership

had

undergone

"l'examen

e

plus rigide."

For had

not the

Jacobins

decided,

threeweeks before,

hattheywould recognize

as true

popular

societies

que

celles

dont

le

comite

revolutionnaire

urait

forme

le noyau

apres s'etreepure

lui-meme, ue celles dont

tous les membres uraient

passe par

le

scrutin

puratoire

de ce

meme

comite?'6

Soboul

may

be

right

n

saying

that

the

veryseverity

f

this

Party

dictat

produced

a backlash from

the

societies

hemselves.

ertainly

we

have

instances f some

of them

sking

for

ffil-

iation,being

declared

not

pure enough,

and going

their

separate

ways for as

long as

the Terror allowed them).

But

not the Museum section:that

s the point.

They were thepurestof thepure. I have an idea, indeed, thatthe whole episode

of

26 vendemiaire,

milkymetaphors

nd

all,

was meant as a

kind of

template

for

other

such

bindings

nd

purgings

o

come.

So are

we entitled

o ook

back

on the

procession

of

25 vendemiaire

with

what

happened

the

next

day

n mind?

Not

necessarily.

ometimes

n

historytrings

re

really

notbeing pulled

behind thescenes. Revolutions re

untidy.

Coincidences

do

happen.

Politicians

have more

important hings

o

worry

bout

than

pictures

and

hymns.

But

David was a politician.

My

hunch s thatthe afternoon's vents

had been

conceived,and orchestrated, s a kindof proofof the Museum section'sortho-

doxy.Popular

festivity-the

ans-culottes

communiant ans le souvenir

de leurs

martyrs"-was

under

control. t

had

got

tself he

requisite tiffening.

specially

of armed

force.

Or

maybe

we should

say

that the

procession

was

a kind of

reward,

fromthe

Party,

or a

purge

that

had

already

taken

place. "Rigid

examinations,"

fter

all,

are

not

performed

n the

spur

of

the moment n the

body

of the

hall. What the

Museum

section

was,

or had made

itself,

was

no

doubt

known to the

parties

that

mattered

ong

before

nyone

turned

up

at the

assembly oint

on

25

vendemiaire.

Maybethis swhy heConventionnels llowed theirpictures ut in the

first

lace.

Painting

n

theYear

Two

19



10/53

6.

Historians

gree that

September

1793 was a turning

point

n theJacobins'

relations

withthesans-culottes.

ven Francois Furet,

who is

more

skeptical

han

most

of a

picture

of revolutionary olitics

mpelled by

class

tension,

sees Sep-

tember

as "probably

the crucial period

in

the formation

f the

Revolutionary

government."And his reasons have a Soboulian ringto them."The Mountain

had

needed the

sans-culottes

o defeat

theGironde

in the Spring

of 1793, and

wished

to keep

them s allies

but without

iving

p any

mportant owers."'

That

proved

difficult.

summer

of agitation

n

the streets

nd clubs

culminated,

n 5

September,

with the sections'

armed

forces

surrounding

the

Convention,

demanding

the setting p

of an arme'e

e'volutionnaire

oruse against

the

Republic's

enemies

at home,

a

purge

of

the

Committees

f PublicSafety nd

General

Secu-

rity, nd

massarrests.

Furet's

phrase

is

a

trifle land:

"The

Convention

gave ground

but retained

controlover events."On 5 September tagreed thatTerror was now "theorder

of the day."

On

9

September

t set

up

the arme'e e'volutionnaire.

wo

days

later

t

fixedmaximum

prices

for grain

and

flour.Another

fortnight nd

the maximum

was extended,

at

least

in

theory,

o

wages

and prices

for all

commodities.

t put

the

Revolutionary

ribunal

on a war footing

n the fourteenth,

assed

the

Law

of Suspects

on the seventeenth,

old the local revolutionary

ommittees

o

draw

up

lists

of the Revolution's

nemies.

And immediately

t turned ts new weapons

against

the

most

dangerous

representatives

f

those who had asked

for them

n

the

first

lace.

Jacques

Roux was

finally

mprisoned

the

veryday

the armed sec-

tionsringed

the

Tuileries.'8 Other

enrage'sollowed.

Their

newspapers

sputtered

into silence.On 9 September he Convention greed topaya smallwage to needy

citizens

for attendance

at

their ssemble'esectionales,

ut

only

f

the sections gave

up

theirhabit

of meeting

daily and

monitoring

he Convention's

doings).

Twice

a week,

or better

till,

wice

decade,

would be sufficient.'9

t was the

beginning

f

a

whole series

of moves

by

theJacobins

whichhemmed

n,

and eventually ut

an

end

to,

the sections

as an

independent

force. This is the context

n which

the

events

f

26

vendemiaire

hould

be understood.

September

s

the

month, think,

when

David

took the

key

decisions

n his

painting

f Marat.

7.

I

realize

I have

rubbed

my

reader's

nose

in

the detail

of politics

n 1793.

And that s as

it should

be.

My

claim, you

will

remember,

s that

the detail

of

politics

s what

David's

Marat

s made out

of.

Politics,

should

say,

s the

form

par

excellence

f that

contingency

which

makes

modernism

what

t s. That

is

why

those

who wish modernism

had

never

happened

(and

not a few

who think

hey

re

firmly

n

its

side)

resist

o the death

the dea

that

rt,

tmany

of ts

highest

moments

n

the

nineteenth nd

twentieth

centuries,

ook

the stuff

f

politics

s

its

material,

nd

did not transmute

t. think

ofGericault'sRaft nd Delacroix'sLiberty,f Courbet n 1850 and Manet in 1869,

20

REPRESENTATIONS



11/53

of Morris and

Ensor and Menzel, of Pressa

and Guernica, fRude's Marseillaise

and Saint-Gaudens's

haw

Memorial,

of

Medals orDishonor,

onument

o

heThird

International,erlin

and Vitebsk,Cologne and Guadalajara. No

one

but

a fool,of

course,

would

deny

that

politicsprovided

the occasion

for

art

in some or all of

thesecases. The disagreement urns n the words "occasion" and "material," nd

especially

he

claim

that

n

somestrong ense modernist rt not

only sobligedto

make

form out

ofpolitics,

ut

also

to leave the

accident

and

tendentiousness

f

politics

n the form t makes-not to transmute t, n otherwords. Otherwisethe

claim

s

harmless.

For we know

very

well thatRubens and VelAzquezoperated as

a matter

of

course

with materialsthat had

"politics"grossly

nscribed

n

them.

The Surrendert Breda,

he

Triumphsf

Mariede

Medici.Painters

were providers f

political

ervices.

But of a

special, duly

allottedkind: there s the difference rom

modernism.The service

theyperformed

was to

transmute

he

political,

o

clean

itof thedross of contingency, o raise

itup to the realmofallegory, r-subtler

performance

for

deeper sophisticates-to

make its

very

everydayness uietly

miraculous.

Surrender at Breda

equals Entry

nto

Jerusalem.)

I am not sayingthat an effort t

raising nd transfiguring

imply eased on

or

about

vend6miaire

Year

2.

The

effort,

e

shall see,

s

palpable

in David's Marat.

And in the

Raft

nd the

Liberty.

dare

say

all

three rtists

would

have

been

happy

withthe idea of themselves s a new VelAzquez.But

I

am saying

that

n

practice

they

were not able to

be

any

such

thing,

nd

that

heir

pictures'

ctualarticulation

of

that mpossibility

s what

makes

them

unprecedented

in the

history

f

art.

Modernism

s about the mpossibility

f

transcendence.

This is a simple, nd one

would havethought rather bvious, dea,which nyone nterestedn the texture

of

modernity

would

find

asy

to

accept.

But that

would

be to underestimate he

doubleness

of the term

modernism"

n

the

sentence.

Modernism s

Art.And

Art,

or

a certain

ult of

Art,

s

exactly

he

site

for ome) on

whichthe

mpossibility

f

transcendence

an be

denied.

Perhaps

it is the

one site

eft.So defend

it

by any

means

necessary.

Modernism'sbrokenness nd

ruthlessness, ay

ts

nemies,

re willed,forced,

and

ultimately

utile.We

may

even have

escaped

from

hem

at last.

Modernism's

extremity,ay

ts

false

friends,

s

ust

surface

ppearance,

beneath

which the real

matter f art-not just thedelights fmanufacture, ut what thosedelightshave

always given onto,

moments of

vision,

here-and-now

otalities,

whole usable

past-is kept

in

being,

no doubt

against

the odds. When

I

say

false

friends t is

not that

doubt

the

passion

of their

defense,

r even that tsrhetoric

orresponds

to much that

the modernists aid of themselves. ut

modernism

s a

process

that

deeply misrecognizes

ts own nature

for

much of the time. How could

it not be?

It is Art.

And for Art to abandon what

Art

most

ntenselywas,

and

yet

still to

proceed,

still

o

go

on imagining

he worldotherwise-otherwise,notepitomized

or

complete-is

not

likely

o

happen

without

ll

kinds of reaction formation

n

the

part

of

artists.

Painting

n

theYear

Two

21



12/53

8.

The case

remains

to be

proven,

know.

The case

is particular.

am

not

saying

hat

modernism-all

or

any

modernism-is

political,"

r somehow

diot-

ically

trying

o

demote

the careers

of, among

others,

Corot and

Monet

and

Matisse.

I am saying

that the

engagement

ofmodernism

with

politics t

certain

momentstells us something bout itscomingto termswith the world's disen-

chantment

n

general.

Corot and

Monet and Matisse

had their own

ways

of

dealing

with

the same

situation. should

say theyrecognized

heworld's

disen-

chantment

n terms

with

sense

of what

was at stake)

that put them

alongside

Courbet

and

Manet

and

Malevich-as

opposed

to Rousseau

and

Renoir

and

Derain,

forexample,

to choose

difficultases.

The fact

hat

heir rthad

nothing

to say

about

the

Dreyfus

ffair,

r

that Madame Matisse

decided

not to disturb

her

husband's

dreamworld

bytelling

him

she

was working

for the Resistance,

s

not a

propos.

here

are dreamworlds

nd

dreamworlds.

Anyone

not capable

of

seeing thatMatisse'stellsus more than anyone else's in the lasthundred years

about

what dreaming

has

become had

better

give

up

on modernismright

way.)

I

have

to show

what

mean by aying

hat

David's

Marat

"turns n

the mpos-

sibility

f

transcendence"

nd

shows

us

politics

s

the form f a

world.

9. On 28July

1793,

a Sunday,

herewas a ceremony

having

to do with

Marat

in

the

Club

des Cordeliers-at

that

moment the

other great

centerof

Jacobin

politics

besides

the

societe-mWre

tself.

A seriesoforators

tood

beforea small

altar

erected

to Marat's

sacred

heart. Marat

had used theCordeliers

as one center

of

hispoliticaloperations, nd the altarcontainedthevery elic, xtractedfromhis

body ust

a fortnight

efore.

The murder

had taken

place

on

13

July.

Later writers

bout

David'spicture

have been fond

of making

hecomparison

between

it and a

Piet&.

Sometimes

they

have

seemed to

think the comparison

disposes

of

the case.

And

there s

nothing

new to the

inkage,

or to

the

deological

work

the

linkage

s meant

to do-the saving

of

Marat

from realm

where

what

he

was,

and

what he

meant,

was

(is)

still n

open

question.

The main

orator on

28

July

had this o

say I

have combinedtwo ccounts

of the occasion,

from

rather

different

inds

of

witnesses):

o

toiJesus, toiMarat, CoeurSacr6deJesus, coeur sacr6de Marat, ous avez es

memes

roits

nos

hommages....

Compare

nsuite es travaux

u Fils de

Marie vec

ceux

de

l'Ami

du

Peuple;

es

ap6tres

ont

[m]es

yeux

es

Jacobins

t es

Cordeliers,

es

Publicains

ont

es

boutiquiers,

es

pharisiens

ont

es aristocrates.

esus,

nfin,

tait

un

prophete,

mais

Marat

stun

dieu.

Comme

Jesus,

Marat

ime ardemment

e

peuple

et n'aime

ue

lui;

comme

Jesus,

Marat

deteste

es

nobles,

es

pretres,

es

riches,

es

fripons;

omme

Jesus,

l

ne cesse de

combattre

es

pestes

e la

societe;

ommeJesus,

l

mena

une vie

pauvre

t

frugale;

omme

Jesus,

Marat ut

xtremement

ensible

t humain

. .

[O

thou

Jesus,

thou

Marat,

sacred

heart f

Jesus,

sacred

heart f

Marat,

you

both

have qualtitle o ourhomage.... Compare heworks fthe on ofMary o those fthe

22

REPRESENTATIONS



13/53

Friend

of the

People;

to my eyes

the apostles are the Jacobins

and the Cordeliers,

the

Publicans

are

the

shopkeepers,

the pharisees

are the aristocrats.

Jesus,

finally,

was a

prophet,but Marat

s a god.

Like Jesus,Marat oves

the

people

passionately

nd loves onlythem;

ike

Jesus,

Marat

detests

nobles, priests, he rich,

he swindlers; ikeJesus,he

never

topsbattling

hese pests

of society; ikeJesus,he lived a poor and frugal ife a point,we shall see, David's picture

goes

to extraordinary engths

to

emphasize};

likeJesus,

Marat was

extremely

ender-

hearted

and humane

{ditto}

.]20

And more

in

the same

vein.

The orator seems immediately

to have got the

back

up of part

of the audience,

including

some of

Marat's

most dedicated supporters.

A sans-culotte called

Brochet for one,

who had just reported to

the Society on his

efforts

to find

a

suitable

container for the sacred heart (it was eventually

hung

from the ceiling

in a sortof vial), appears

as

follows

in notes taken on the

occasion:

Brochet,

pres

avoir rendu

un

hommage

aux

grands talents

de

l'orateur,

lame le paral-

lele: Marat,dit-il,n'est pas faitpour etre compare a Jesusde Nazareth; cet homme, fait

Dieu par

les

pretres,

eta

sur terre es semences de la superstition,

l

defendit

es Rois.

Marat au

contraire ombattit

e fanatisme

t

declara la guerre au

tr6ne. Qu'on ne nous

parle amais,

s'est6cri6

Brochet,

de

ceJesus [In

another

account,

"Il

ne

fautjamais

parler

de ce

Jesus,

ce sont des sottises.

Des

germes

de fanatisme t toutesces fadaises

ont

mutik6

la Libert6des

son berceau."]

La

philosophie,

ui,

la

seule

philosophie doit etre

e

guide

du

RWpublicain,

eur

seul Dieu

doit

etre a

Libert6.

[Brochet,

having paid homage

to the orator's great talents,

inds fault with

the

parallel:

Marat,

he

says,

s

not to be compared to Jesus

of

Nazareth;

that man, made

God by the

priests,

owed the

seeds

of

superstition

n earth, he defended Kings.

Marat on the con-

trary attled againstfanaticismnd declaredwar on the throne. Let's hear no more talk

of this

Jesus,

Brochet

shouted

We

must

never

gain

talk bout

this

Jesus;

t

s

ust

foolish-

ness.

The seeds of fanaticism

nd suchlikefiddle-faddle ave

disfigured

iberty

ver since

it was born.} Philosophy,yes, philosophy

lone shall

be the Republicans' guide,

and

they

shall

have

no other God

but

Liberty.]2'

10.

Supposing

David

had been

in the

audience

on

28

July

(which

is not

improbable),

whose side

would he have

been on?

Or

to

put

it less

crudely,

to what

extent

did the

disagreement

between Brochet and

the orator-that

is,

the

possi-

bility

of

such a

disagreement,

even

among

those

who

thought

Marat

a

good

thing-inform

the

making

of his

picture

in

the weeks that followed?

Given that

everybody

agrees

that

some kind of

analogy

between Christ and

Marat was

intended

on

25 vendemiaire,

then

what

kind? And

could the

picture

actually

make

the

analogy-I

mean make

it

stick,

make it

legible,

make it

plausible

even

to viewers

like Brochet?

But even to

begin

to answer these

kinds of

questions,

we have to

try

o recon-

struct

what the

exchange

in the Cordeliers was about. What was at

stake

in it? I

talked

of

David

possibly

ending up

on Brochet's or the orator's side.

What sides

were these?

In

what

sort

of

battle?

Painting

n

the Year Two 23



14/53

11. Very

ittle

n 1793

is simple.

Brochet,

for xample,

s typically

ard

topin

down.

We know

he was

linkedto

Francois

Vincent,

he

leading

light

of the

Cor-

deliers

at thismoment,

nd

perhaps

later

to Hebert

and

thePere

Duchesne.

He

may

have

paid

for

he association.

Richard

Cobb says

he was condemned

to death

on 12 germinal, s partof theJacobins' ettling f accountswiththeHebertists.

Soboul

has

him surviving

nto the Year 3, only

to be

arrested

s a

"terroriste"

n

25

frimaire.22

However

he ended

up, it does

not

mean that

we can assign

him

any cut-and-

dried political

position-still

less a class-political

position-in

the chaos

of

summer

nd

fall.

He seems

to havebeen

at times kindof honest

broker

between

the Cordeliers

and

the

Jacobins.

t was Brochet quoted

previously

s

insisting

in the Club

des Jacobins

n

23

September

that

hepopular

societies

purgethem-

selves

beforebeing

bound closer

to the

Party.

rochet

who acted as

a

moderating

influence

withinhis

own section

Marat,

bringing

n

a

better lass

of artisanand

small shopkeeper

to sit

on the

comite

e'volutionnaire.23

Brochet

whowas

put

up

as

figurehead

president

of the Cordeliers

once the club had

been marginalized.24

And so

on.

Brochet's

s a

representative

oice,

n other words;

representative

n

its

very

uncertainty

bout

where

the Revolution

was.

His

being

sure

in

July

hat

Marat-

the

figure

nd memory

f Marat-had

to be at the center

of revolutionary

elf-

definition

s

nothing

special.

Everyone

from

Saint-Just

o

Jacques

Roux

sub-

scribed

to

that,

t

least

for time.Nor

is his

being

so vehement

bout

the precise

terms

n which

he self-definition

ad

to

be done-these

terms,my

ermsMarat's

terms),not yours.If Saint-Justnd Jacques Roux had been in the same room,

they

would have

fallen

to

arguing

n much the same

way.

12.

Marat

was a

martyr

f

Liberty.

He was Friend

of thePeople.

"Dans

l'etat

de

guerre

oui

nous

sommes,

l

n'y

a

que

le

peuple,

le

petit

peuple,

ce

peuple

si

meprise

et si

peu

meprisable,

qui puisse

imposer

[la

liberte]

ux

ennemis

de la

revolution,

es

contenirdans

le devoir,

es

forcer u silence,

es

reduire

a

cet

etat

de

terreur

alutaire

et

si

indispensable

pour

consommer e

grand

oeuvre

de la

constitutionet]organiser agement 'Etat .."25 Marathad been a constant nemy

of

the

accapareurs,

he

agioteurs,

he

ouvriers e

luxe

among

whom he

numbered

artists).

Tout

manque

au

peuple

contre

les classes

elevees qui

l'oppriment."26

Ever

since

1789

he had

been

arguing

thatsooner

or later the

Revolution

would

stand

n

need

of

violence

f

twas

to survive.

Almost n

physical-scientific

rounds

(before

the

Revolution

he had

practiced

medicine

n

London

and

written ooks

against

materialism):

II en est de

notre

Revolution

comme d'une

cristallisation

troubleepar

des secousses

violentes,

'abord

tous les cristaux

disseminesdans

le

liquide

s'agitent,

e

fuient

t se melent

ans

ordre, puis

ils se meuvent vec

moins

de

vivacite,

e

rapprochent

par

degres

et ... finissent

ar

reprendre

leur

pre-

24

REPRESENTATIONS



15/53

miere

combinaison. .

Only

a series

of new shocks would

prevent

the social

mixture

rom

hardening

once and for

ll.

"C'est

par

la violence

qu'on

doit 'tablir

la liberte, t le

moment st

venu"-this one (of

many) s in April 1793-"d'orga-

niser

momentanement

e

despotisme

de

la liberte pour ecraser

le

despotisme

des rois."28

Of

course there smuch here

thatwould

likely ppeal

to theJacobins

s

they

stood

on theverge

of Terror.Marat

had oftenbeen of their

party n thedisputes

of

the

previous

months.

When the Girondins had asked

for his

arrest

n

early

April,

David himself

had rushed to thetribune houting:

"Je

vous demande que

vous

m'assassiniez,je

uis aussi

un

homme vertueux....

La

liberte

riomphera."29

By the

timeof hisdeath

Marat was largely

econciled

with he emergingpowers.

Michelethas a sardonic

subheading

for

June

1793: "Robespierreet

Marat gar-

diens

de l'ordre."

But look

again

at

the

phrases

from 'Ami

duPeuple uoted above.

Their con-

tent, nd above all their hetorical emperature,re typical f Marat'sournalism.

And they re enough

to

suggest hat,

econciled

or not, Maratpromised

to go on

being

a mixed

blessing

for

revolutionary overnment-certainly

or

governors

f

Robespierre's

vision and

personal

style.

It

was not simplyMarat's

habit of

adopting

the wildest

nd bloodiest

formof

words,

even when what

he was rec-

ommending

was a

fairly rdinary

xtension

f the

State'smonopoly

of force.

Let

us

not call

it

a War Cabinet

or

an

Emergency

owers

Act,

et us

call

it a

despotism

of liberty.)Nor

that

he stood

in

the minds of theJacobins'

enemies

in 1793 as

a

symbol

f

everything

he

Jacobins

were

but did not

dare

declare themselves.

The

Girondinshad farfromgivenup on Marat after hefailureof theirAprilcam-

paign.

He was the monster

who had

given

the

signal

for

the

September

Massa-

cres.

Blood

was

still n

his

head. Charlotte

Corday

was

part

of

a Girondin

circle

in

Caen

where such

talk was

commonplace.)

t

was also

that Marat's unswerving

identification

ith

the

petit

euple

of Paris-one-sided

as the identificationmay

have been,

since his

inkswith he

popular

clubs

and

societieswere tenuous-led

him time nd

again

to

give

voice

to

positions

n the "social

question"

that ll other

parties greed

were

beyond

the

pale.

In

1791,

for

example,

he

had

been more or less alone

in

opposing

the

Lois

Le

Chapelierwhichput an end to workers' ssociations;not that he disapproved of

removing bstacles

to free trade-that

would have been to

reimaginehis whole

philosophe

nheritance

fromthe

groundup,

which

certainly

he was incapable

of

doing-but

that he

thought

preventing

workersfrom

gathering

o

discuss their

interestswas,

in

a

time of

trouble,

ne

more

way

of depriving he

Revolutionof

support.30

And this s

the

typical rajectory

f Marat's

politics.

A

terrible

deter-

mination

o

forge

or

preserve

those

weapons

thatthe

Revolution

might

need

(in

his

opinion)

combines

with wishto

speak

for he

despised

and rejected.

No one

is claiming

that

the

combination

ed

to a

specific

r consistent olitics,

r to

one

which

put

him

usually

at odds

withthe

Jacobins.

A lot of the time

n 1793 it is

Painting

n theYearTwo 25



16/53

more a question

of

him seeming

to

push

the

Jacobins

o do what

was necessary

o

annihilate

their

nemics.

Even if-maybe

in Marat's

case, especially

f-the

ene-

mies also

claimed

to

be

speaking

n the

petit euple's

name.

Marat

called

early

on

for

an end toJacques

Roux

and the

enrag's.3'

But even

herethe

ogicof

Terror

led back to the same set of insoluble class paradoxes. The enrage'smust be

destroyed

because they

re a faction.The

Revolution

has no room

for

factions

because

it s

one and

indivisible.

Because

its

great

terms re Nation

and

People,

singular

nd

sovereign.

But

ifthe

People

is

singular

nd sovereign,

hen

does

that

mean

that

those

who make

up

the

majority

f its members

are

the

People-for

some

reason

as yet

not

properly

represented"?

But

could there

be

such a

"rep-

resentation"

without

the

whole currentpanoply

of the State-the

necessary

armor

of

the

Revolution

n

difficulties-being

hrown

nto

the

melting

pot?

No

answers

to these questions

emerged

in Year

2. The questions

themselves

were

raised

only

dimly

nd fitfully.

ut at

least Marat's

writing eems

to have

impelled

him

toward

the

point

where,

n however

garbled

and pseudo-ferocious

form,

the

questions

came up.

13. Marat

was close

to

the

Jacobins,

hen.

In

my

view

he was distinct

rom

them-the

image

of

politics

he stoodfor exceeded

Robespierre's

nd David's

in

various

crucial ways-and

it should

not come as a surprise

hat fter

his murder,

plenty

f people

thought

he

timehad

come to make

the distinction

bsolute.

The

enrages,

or a start.

Three

days

after

Marat's

assassination,

on 16

July,

Jacques

Roux published ssue243 ofMarat'snewspaper, e Publicistee aRepubliqueran-

caise

par

l'Ombre

e

Marat,

'Ami

u

Peuple.

What

gave

him

the

right

o do so,

he

claimed,

was

the hatred

he had

earned "of

the

royalists,

he federalists,

heego-

ists,

he moderates,

he hoarders,

he monopolists,

he speculators,

he ntriguers,

the traitors

nd

bloodsuckers

of the

people":32

the more comprehensive

he list,

the better

his claim

to Marat's

egacy.

n contradistinction

o those

who had too

many

friends

n

high

places:

thatwas

the

mplication.

Anotherenrage',

heophile

Leclerc,

followed

uit

with new

run ofL'Amidu

Peuple

brought

out

in summer

and

early

fall.

Hebert,

n

the Pere

Duchesne,

ushed

to assure

his readers

that

no

name changewas necessary: he mantleofMaratfellon him. And so forth.

These signs

need

not necessarily

have amounted

to much.

They could

have

been

a

version

of the

usual

ockeying

for

position

fter

leader dies,especially

f

he or

she dies

in

harness-part

of

the

spume

of

politics,

with no

very

deep

or

permanent

nterests

n

play.

But

I

do

not think

hey

were.

Two

things rgue

other-

wise.

First,

he elaborateness

of

the

Jacbobins'

fforts o counter

the

enrage's'

id

for ownership,

nd draw

Marat back

into their

fold. And second,

the fact that

Marat's

shadowkept

spreading

and

transmuting

n the months

hat

followed,

n

ways

whichclearly

xceeded any

one

party's

r interest's oing.

There was

a cult

of

Marat

in

Year

2.

Soboul

is not alone

in

thinking

t

had,

for a

while,

the first

26

REPRESENTATIONS



17/53

glimmerings f true religiosity bout it.

A cult in the strong sense, then-the

French or Durkheimian sense. People gathering

o give formto theircollective

will. And investing heir fears and hopes in a single figure, ike and unlike

themselves.

14. First,

what the

Jacobinsdid. Obviously

no

very

clear

line can

be drawn

betweenJacobin nstigationor

effort t containment) nd pressurefrombelow.

I think heJacobinswere often rying

o

drawsome such line, and failing.Maybe

theywere

on

25 vendemiaire.Equally,

the

scene at

the end of

July

n the Corde-

liers has some

of

the hallmarks

f

an

official ccasion. The orator may well have

thought

he was

speaking

aJacobin

script,

r

one theywould approve

of. But

that

does

not

mean we are

entitled o

take

Brochet

s speakingthe enrages'

r

Hebert's.

Maybe

he

was. More likely

he

thought

he

was right

t

the Revolution's

enter. t

was one thingto go shopping for an urn forMarat's sacred heart, another to

glory

n the

analogy

between the

new

cults nd those theyweresupposed to dis-

place. "La philosophie, oui, la seule philosophiedoit etre le guide

du

Republi-

cain."

What would

Robespierre

find

o

disagree

with

n

that?

The

Jacobins

found themselves

negotiating

with too many things calling

themselvesMarat.

That is

part

of the tension

which makes David's

picture

so

spellbinding.

But

this

s not to

say

that

nyone's

Marat was grist

o

the

mill.

Lines

got drawn, quickly

and

brutally.Robespierre

broughtMarat'swidow,

Simone

Evrard, before the bar

of the Conventionon 8

August,

and

had her specifically

denounce Jacques

Roux and

Theophile

Leclerc-"scoundrelly

writers

..

who

claim

to continue his

ournals

and make his

spirit peak,

in order to

outrage

his

memory

nd

lead

the

people astray."33

Now that

he is

dead, they

re

trying

o

perpetuate

the

parricidal alumny

which

represented

him

as

an

insensate

postle

of disorder

and

anarchy."34

n

22

AugustJacques

Roux was arrested

forthe first

time.

On

5

September

he was ailed

for

good.

Leclerc

disappears

from

he histor-

ical recordas the fallwears

on.

He

had seen

the writing

n

the wall.

Hebert

was

soon

fighting nsuccessfully

orhis

ife.

15. Marat was too important,nd toovolatile, political ignto let one's ene-

mies make use

of; especially

those who

wanted his

ghost

to do littlemore than

repeat

the

question

he had asked

in

June,

nd

by mplication

ftenbefore:

"Qu'a-

t-il

gagne

a

a

Revolution?"-the

ii

being

the

People,

naturally.35ut

the

question

would

not be

robbed

of

its

edge simply y

pretending

Marat had never asked

it,

or

exterminating

hose

who

said he

had.

Marat must

go

on

asking

the

question,

with

his characteristic

ehemence,

but

giving

t a

Jacobin

answer.

The

category

People

had to

have

something

e its

sign.

Among

the

signifying ossibilities

n

offer

n

1793,

"Marat" seemed one of

the best

available.

At

least

n him the cate-

gory

was

personified.

That

might

mean thatthe welter

f

claims, dentifications,

Painting

n theYearTwo 27



18/53

and resentments

wrapped up

in the

word could

at least be concentrated nto

a

single figure-and

therefore

haped

and

contained. It

would

take some

doing.

16. Of course

I

am

not

saying

hat

Robespierre and

his

henchmen sat down

one day in August and worked all this out. ". . .Job foryou, Citizen David."

Nobody

knew what was

going

to

happen

next n the

summer

of

1793.

Nobody

had a firmhold

on

events.

But

equally,

do think hat

David's painting picture

of Marat

n

Augustand

September

was

steeped n-informed by-the battleover

Marat's egacy.

Otherwise would not

have bothered to

describe

t

n

such

detail.

What

marks

my

ccount

off rom

onspiracy heory

s not

so much a

priori udg-

ment that

History

does not work ike that-too much

of the time t

does-as a

feeling

hat

n

this

case,

with

hese

materials,

no

such

calculus

of

advantage

was

possible.

I

make

a

distinction,

n

other

words,between the sort of

manipulation

I thinkwas behindtheorganization f theprocessionon 25 vendemiaire and its

connection

with he

purge

of

the sectionnext

day)

and the more

extended,

more

intuitive acobin

effort

o have Maratsignifyntheir erms.David's

effortn par-

ticular,

ut also the wider

Jacobin negotiation

withthe Marat cult. And most of

all,

the

implication

f David's

painting

n

the

negotiation.

Soboul is

right.

The

situation

s out of control.

Surely

never before

had the

powers-that-be

n

a

State

been

obliged

to

improvise sign anguage

whose

very

ffectiveness

epended

on

itsseemingto thePeople a

language they

had made

up, whichrepresentedtheir

interests.No doubt

it s

easy

to

say

n

retrospect hat

t

did no

such

thing.

But that

is not the point.What matters o the historicalmagination, t least in the first

instance, s how the actors

aw t.

conceive them

s waveringhopelesslybetween

conspiracy

nd

purediscursiveness,

etween alculus of

effects nd belief

n

their

own

symbols.

No one

more

hopelessly therefore roductively)

han

David.

17. The

question

I

startedfrom

was:

Supposing

David had been

present

n

the

Cordeliers,

would he have

been

on

Brochet'sor the

orator's ide? And what

would

he have taken the

argument

between them to

be

about,

essentially?Rep-

resenting

whose interests?

At leastbynow weknowwhat stands nthewayofa cut-and-dried nswer to

any

of

the

above. But the David

I

imagine

s

not

discouraged by

his

inability

o

give

an answer-more

likelygalvanized by

the

fact. t is the

uncertainty

f level

in

the debate that s

its

chief

fascination,

nd makes him

mostwant

to

oin

in.

He

knew that

picturing

Marat was a

politicalmatter, art

of a

process

of

"freezing"

the Revolution

Saint-Just's

nforgettablemetaphor)

or

maybetrying

o

do the

opposite.

He

would

be on

the

lookout

for

danger signals.

But of

course he took

the

evening's

rhetoric

t

face value.

He

believed

that new world was under con-

struction.No

doubt

he

saw in

the

cult

of Marat the first

orms

of a

liturgy

nd

ritual

n

which

the truths f the Revolution tself

would be made

flesh-People,

28

REPRESENTATIONS



19/53

t I

c-/XtI^2tav

le "W

@/t/ t f0-2'/' ,*W

Z//

~emel.

r/.7re

ZPtl2e

se.

6oe;

//i a(2nbw,7/oIn

Ws.n&.,i''/a7/fb/t/

jjA

FIGURE 2. Anonymous,Roberspierresic]entrantans

l'appartement

e

Marat,

1793.

Engraving.

Musee du Louvre.

Photo: Photographie

Bulloz, Paris.

Nation, Virtue,Reason, Liberty.

How could he not have

thrilled,

s the summer

and fallwent

on,

to the

glamorous

detailsof Marat'sdeification?News of

twenty-

nine towns and

villagescalling

themselves

fter

the

martyred

aint.36 f Marat

becominga favorite nti-Christian ame for newborn babies. Of churchafter

church,

n

brumaire

and

frimaire

specially, aking

down the crucifix nd

the

Virgin

nd

putting p

Marat and

Le

Peletier

n

their

place-one

historian ounts

fiftyuch

ceremonies

n Paris

alone.37

Que

le

batiment ervant i-devant

'eglise

devienne

le lieu des seances de

la

societe

populaire,

et en

consequence

que

les

bustesde

Marat et

Lepelletierremplacent

es

statuesde saint

Pierre t saint

Denis,

leurs anciens

patrons,

t

que

la commune de

Mennecy-Villeroy

oit

dorenavant

nommee

commune de

Mennecy-Marat."38

f

processions

and

speeches

and

apotheoses, many

of

them-particularly

n

August-with

much less of a

stage-

managed

look

than the one David would be involved

n.

Of women

going

n

for

"coiffuresa la Marat."39 f Montmarat eplacingMontmartre.Of

dechristianisa-

teurs

erfecting suitably

modernized

ign

of the

cross,

o be

accompanied by

the

impeccable murmur,

Le

Peletier,Marat,

a

Liberte

ou la Mort."40

f

prints

nd

broadsides

and terracotta

hrinesfor the

sans-culottes'

mantelpiece

figs.

2

and

3).

Of militants n

11

Octoberjust

five

ays

before

he Museum

procession,drag-

ging

the

portraits

f

kings

and

princes

out of the Palais

du

Fontainebleau and

Painting

n theYearTwo

29



20/53

burning

them

n

front f Marat's mage (figs. and

5). Smoke from he portrait

of

Louis

XIII

by Philippe de Champaigne, t was

said, "was wafted owards the

bust.

t

was

the

most greeable

incense we could offer."'4'

18.

These details, s

I

say,

re

glamorous;

and perhaps

for that reason

mis-

leading. There is a qualityof farceor factitiousnesso manyof them, nd time

and again

one is on the verge of dismissing

he lot (as Richard Cobb does,

for

instance)

s

a

series

of

udicrous

or

vengeful

tunts,

which ut

no ice with

rdinary

men and

women.

And then one

comes across the

report

of

a

ceremony,

r

a

petition

from

village,

or a

phrase

or two from sectionnaire's

peech,

which

s

suddenly

free of the

standard forms

r the activist's

verkill,

nd in which

one

thinksone

overhears

the

struggles-maybe

the ludicrous

struggles-of

a

new

FIGURE

3

(left).Anonymous,

beliskwith ameos ofLe Pelletier nd

Marat,

1793. Wood and

gilt.

Private ollection.

Reproduced

from

Jean-Claude

Bonnet,

ed.,

La Mort e

Marat

Paris,

1986),

plate

12,

by permission

f

Flammarion.

FIGURE

4

(right).

Anonymous,

ustof

Marat,

1793.

Muse'e

Carnavalet,

Paris. Photo:

Photographie

Bulloz.

30

REPRESENTATIONS



21/53

_9'

vlaa,

le~i

rae~rej.

Cal&

DeMarat.

FIGURE

5. Anonymous,

Plais

de

'Egipte

u Etat

de

la France

epuis

789

[sic],

detail,1794. Engraving.

Bibliotheque

nationale,

Paris.

Reproduced

from

Ian

Germani,Jean-Paul

Marat:Hero and

Anti-Hero

of he rench evolution

(Lampeter,U.K.,

1992),

plate

49,

by permission

f

wije

eur

Qveuykrr~/ztc ~nonjtrcEdwin

Mellen

Press.

,tw

tear

aveu ezeit

at

e tnorvtr

o@@eux,

lJr'entAent/cacens

ue

on

r&eJotx

u

De z)

.

religion

being

born.

There are

many

other Brochets takingpart

n

the process.

Even

the crowd

outside

the Palais

du

Fontainebleau

deserves to figure

n

the

recordas more than a mob of peasant dupes egged on bya handfulof vandal/

professionals.

Who are

we to

say

what

t

musthave

been like to see the

pompous

encampment

n

the forest t last

getting

ts

come-uppance?

What

group

of

men

and

women had

more

of

a

right

o

pre-echo

Walter

Benjamin's

"There is no doc-

ument

of civilization

which s not at

the

same time

a document of barbarism."

Barbarism

had been their

aily

bread. Maybe

ttook burningPhilippe

de

Cham-

paigne

to convince themthat

t

need

not be

any

onger.

The

more

one looks at the cult ofMarat,

the

ess

clear

it

becomes

what kind

of

phenomenon

one

is

studying.

Which

history

s

it

part

of? Of

popular

religion

orStateformation? f improvisationythemenu euple rmanipulation y lites?

The question applies

to the

episode

of

de-Christianization s a

whole.

And

the

answer

obviously

s both.

he cultof Marat exists t the ntersection

etween hort-

term

political

ontingency

nd

long-term

isenchantment

f the world.

Maybe

n

its atter

guise

it

often

ooks ike a rear-guard ction against

the oss of

the

sacred.

But here

too itsforms

were unstable nd ambivalent.

We knowof orators

taging

the

Jesus-Marat

omparison

n

order

to

prove

thatthe

priests

had

captured

and

neutralized Jesus

e

sans-culotte"

ypretending

he was

anything

ut

a man.42Or

others

besides

Brochet) making

he

comparison

to

Jesus

Christ's

isadvantage.

We

know thateven

in the

best-managed

ection-even

in

August-things

could

Painting

in the Year Two

31



22/53

happen thatreminded

all concerned

that thecult's basic

premise was far from

clark painting in the year two

Documents